Polk, Fillmore, Buchanan and Genocide Against California Indians
* What: Mass killings and enslavement of California Indians by Anglo-American vigilantes during the Gold Rush and after. Formal enslavement of Indians finally came to an end in 1865 only because of the Fourteenth Amendment. In remote areas of California, there were a few cases of Indian enslavement into the 1890s.
* The Body Count: 120,000 to 270,000 deaths by murder and enslavement. Over 80-90% of the Native population was wiped out from 1848 to 1865, dropping to about 30,000. The average size of a California Indian tribe dropped from 5,000 to 6,000 to under 500. Some California tribes number under 100 people even today.
* Unlike genocide carried out against Natives in most of the rest of the Americas, most California Indians were killed by violence, not disease. Almost all violence was done by Anglo-American militias and vigilante groups who went on “Indian hunting” expeditions.
* Who Also Gets the Blame:
* Contrary to most old western films, most violence against American Indians was done by Anglo-American colonists, not the US Army. A single vigilante militia killed dozens per expedition, and typically went “hunting” several times a week.
* The state government of California financed genocide, gave it legal legitimacy, and kept the US government from intervening. The state of California set aside over $1.5 million in bounties for the killing of American Indians, which had to be proven by bringing in their scalps as evidence. The California government in turn successfully lobbied the US government to reimburse them for paying for Native scalps.
* Some California towns like Honey Lake and Marysville also paid bounties for Indian scalps, which they in turn asked the state or federal government to reimburse.
* The California state government also legalized the enslavement of Natives. While technically admitted as a free state, California law only barred the enslavement of Blacks, not American Indians. Under the surreal name the Act for the Government and Protection of Indians, any white male could legally enslave any Native, not just children but adults of any age, by getting him declared an “orphan” by the courts. Legally, Natives and other nonwhites were barred from testifying in court, filing suit, or voting. Much of the mining during the Gold Rush was done, not be Anglo-American miners, but by enslaved California Indians doing forced labor for Anglo-American miners. The most infamous example was Sutter's Mill, where the first discovery of gold was made. Johan Sutter and his partners enslaved hundreds of California Indians. Sutter was also a slave trader and leader of militias that attacked Native villages.
* The city of Los Angeles also auctioned off Native prisoners for sale as slaves to Anglo-Americans. Newspapers noted there were some objections to the sale of prisoners, but many locals hoped the problem would be solved instead by exterminating all Natives.
* Prior to US invasion, the Spanish military and missionaries forced American Indian tribes onto missions. Concentrated populations, disease, and overwork reduced California Indians from as high as one million to under 300,000 in less than 80 years. California Indians had little history of organized warfare and thus were uniquely vulnerable to Spanish military power. Still, revolts broke out in several missions. Once the independence movement in Mexico began, Spanish authorities neglected California missions. Mexican authorities did so as well, and many California Indians either went back to their homelands or ran the missions for themselves.
* What role did US presidents play in California Indian genocide? No president specifically issued orders for this genocide. As noted before, it was vigilante mobs and colonist militias that carried out massacres and enslavement, subsidized by the California government. Three of the four US presidents from Polk to Buchanan were guilty of standing by and letting genocide be carried out by American citizens and local governments.
* When one discusses genocide against Natives, often there are two responses, common but wrong. One is denial, saying this was somehow not really genocide. In large part the blame for that lies with US schools usually not teaching the topic. Most California public schools especially avoid mentioning the US state was founded by genocide and depict the only violence in the Gold Rush as squabbling between white miners. Another part of that response is claiming genocide was just typical warfare, often based on images of Natives as violent savages, reinforced by old Hollywood westerns and today's “Indian” sports mascots.
* In part this claim misunderstands Native history. In North America, almost all Native warfare was simple raiding for food or personal revenge, very limited and with no intent to even conquer another people, much less wipe them out. But especially with California Indians, one cannot even point to organized warfare. This made them easy targets for European and Anglo-American racist violence. Unlike Plains and Southwest Indian tribes who did have strong martial traditions that helped them resist invasion for centuries, California Indians were almost exterminated in less than twenty years.
* The other common but wrong response is to assume all whites were racists at the time. This is an argument made by those thinking they are properly cynical about the past. But instead this claim makes excuses for racism. By making everyone white a racist, it becomes seen as normal and no one is guilty. One also has to be very ignorant of history, or choosing to be blind, to believe it. For even young schoolchildren know about abolitionists.
* More than that, one can point to very large numbers of anti racist whites in every period of US history from colonial times on. The Catholic Church, especially Jesuits, shielded Natives from Spanish conquerors. In the US, many Baptists, Methodists, and Quakers stood with Native peoples and the latter two churches also made up most of the abolitionist movement. As mentioned before about the Trail of Tears, the entire Whig Party and perhaps half of all white Americans opposed the forced removal of the Five Tribes.
* There were even some white Californians who opposed genocide against Natives, notably some newspapers. But they were far outnumbered by those consumed with greed for gold who were willing to exterminate Natives or enslave them to get it. Three of four presidents at the time were bigoted and indifferent, standing by while genocide and Indian slavery happened before their eyes.
* The first, James Polk, was a racist and a believer in conquest for empire. It was he who more than any president was responsible for the current shape of the US, expanding it to the Pacific. For this, many historians list him as a “successful” president. More subtle historians note how he accomplished this, by deliberate deception, provoking a war of aggression. (See Section Three.) It was Polk who made California Indian genocide possible by ordering the US conquest of California and its seizure from Mexico.
* The next president, Zachary Taylor, was in office only a little over a year before dying from illness, and thus as president is blameless. (Some argue that as a general he was not blameless when it came to atrocities against Mexican civilians. See Section Three.) His sole role in California was in supporting its immediate admission as a state to make certain Congress would have no say over its status as slave or free.
* Taylor was succeeded by Millard Fillmore. Fillmore is often described as one of our worst presidents. He was later a presidential candidate for the Know Nothing Party, whose bigotry focused on Irish Catholics. (See Section Six.) Fillmore sent three commissioners to negotiate treaties with Native tribes.
* Fillmore's commissioners negotiated eighteen hopelessly failed treaties. They met with less than a third of Native leaders in the state. The eighteen treaties took away nearly all Native lands, leaving only 8% of California lands for the tribes.
* But even that was not enough for greedy colonists. Their concern was not to end conflict but to take every bit of land possible. California's elected representatives successfully pushed Congress into rejecting all treaties in a secret vote, and then ordered documents related to the treaties kept secret for 50 years. While some wanted complete extermination, most Californians publicly called for ethnic cleansing of all Natives from the entire state.
* The next president, James Buchanan, replaced the three commissioners with a single Superintendent of Indians Affairs for the state. Buchanan was an utter incompetent whose inaction and borderline treason made the Civil War almost inevitable. (See Section Four.) He was also a strong believer in slavery and the supremacy of whites over both Blacks and Indians.
* Under Buchanan, California Indian lands were reduced to almost nothing. The new superintendent created five military reservations with no more than 25,000 acres, less than 40 square miles in a state of almost 160,000 square miles. Anglo-American volunteers worked with the military to round up Natives and remove them to reservations. Theoretically voluntary and for their protection, removal was by force.
* Most superintendents and other reservation agents were quite corrupt. Federal funds and supplies intended for Native needs were mostly stolen by agents or their partners in crime. Natives, far from being sheltered on reservations, were often murdered or kidnapped and enslaved. Not too surprisingly, most California Indians fled the reservations and hid. All five reservations ended in failure, and President Buchanan and his superintendents' greed and incompetence was as much a cause as Anglo-American racist violence.
* Yet to claim that because three of these presidents were bumbling bigots that California Indians were preordained to be almost wiped out is false. Any deep study of history shows that virtually nothing is inevitable. Even the famous saying about death and taxes is at least half false, for taxes and tax rates come and go. Almost every instance of mass deaths, as this study shows repeatedly, could have been prevented or at least limited.
* There were other men who potentially could have easily been presidents who would have prevented the US conquest of Mexico, and thus California Indian genocide. For a president who did delay both the conquest and genocide, turn to Section Eight on Van Buren. For a president who could have prevented permanently the conquest of Mexico and thus California Indian genocide, turn to Section Nine on Willie Mangum.
* One not even need turn to possible presidents to see how things could have been different. Lincoln brought an end to California Indian slavery when the Fourteenth Amendment was passed in 1865. (See Section Eight.) California's state and local governments had to repeal their laws on Native slavery because of the amendment. One of Lincoln's final private statements before his murder was that he was going to work towards bettering the situation of California Indians.
* In the 1870s, President Ulysses Grant also issued executive orders that created thirteen new Indian reservations. California Indians would not see a further substantial improvement until Franklin Roosevelt's Indian New Deal and then again under President Nixon (See Section Eight again.)
* There are five museums in the US remembering the Holocaust, but none on genocide against American Indians. The obvious reason why is because condemnation of the Nazis is easy. But a hard honest look at one's own nation and, possibly, one's own ancestors is not so easy. California Indian genocide should be Exhibit A in any teachings on America's treatment of Native peoples, and that must include talking about US presidents' indifference or bumbling.